For nearly every licensed driver, it is known that positioning a vehicle in a garage requires considerable accuracy to avoid any damage to the garage or the vehicle. For instance, the bumpers, fenders or grill may easily be damaged by contact with the stationary rear wall of a garage or obstacles at or near the rear wall, particularly those which constitute projections or barriers which are ordinarily obscured from the driver's line of sight. Moreover, where the garage is undersized in relation to the vehicle, it is oftentimes essential to closely position the front bumper so as to nearly contact the rear wall of the garage.
Of course, the latter problem is directly related to the complete enjoyment of garage door openers. In the event the garage is sized such that a particular vehicle will just sit therewithin, it is important to ensure that the vehicle is properly positioned very near the rear wall of the garage while at the same time avoiding contact therewith which might otherwise damage the wall and/or the vehicle. Without so doing, the driver of the vehicle is unable to determine when the rear of the vehicle will be in the path of movement of the garage door.
Still further, it is generally recognized that residential two car garages are space limited. Thus, precision parking is essential, although not an attribute possessed by many drivers. As a result, it is difficult to ensure leaving ample aisle space to the front, rear and sides of a parked vehicle to allow ingress, egress, and access to garage contents.
In the past, a number of different vehicle parking guides have been proposed, such as, for instance, Wood U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,165, issued July 19, 1977, which proposes utilizing a vertically depending lever that simultaneously actuates an audible and a visible signal to apprise the driver of his progress when contacted by the bumper of the approaching vehicle. Similarly, Williams U.S. Pat. No. 3,219,972, issued Nov. 23, 1965 proposes a parking position indicator which signals a driver of an automobile to indicate the movement of the automobile in the direction of a stationary object. In addition, Bubnich et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,101,868, issued July 18, 1978 proposes a pivotally mounted actuating lever having indicia which can be seen through a transparent sheet material only when placed in contact with the sheet material when the actuating lever is moved toward and into contact with the transparent sheet material. Still other earlier guides, components and the like are disclosed in Lowell, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,966, Mandl U.S. Pat. No. No. 3,261,321, Ross U.S. Pat. No. 2,854,942, Roemisch U.S. Pat. No. 2,693,044, Simpson U.S. Pat. No. 2,834,315, and Pavitt U.S. Pat. No. 1,981,188.
Despite these earlier attempts to provide a parking guide, there has been no truly effective vehicle parking guide capable of both lateral and longitudinal vehicle positioning relative to a fixed point. However, the present invention is directed to overcoming the above stated problems and accomplishing the stated objects by providing a totally unique and improved vehicle parking guide.